


Put the Atom Back Together

by peridium



Category: Watchmen
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peridium/pseuds/peridium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dr. Manhattan finds himself repeatedly drawn to the smartest man in the world and the third-to-last scene of the comic is fucked with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put the Atom Back Together

When all of the other humans, their petty daily squabbles and the repetitive routines of their lives, have grown too tedious and set in their mundane ways for Jon, one person remains interesting. Of all of them, while his actions may not be unpredictable until they reach November of 1985-- "predictable" is, otherwise, a term that does not exist for Jon-- they are layered enough to merit more than a moment's thought.

Ozymandias grasps his hand the first time they meet, shakes it with a firm grip that Jon, or maybe Dr. Manhattan, appreciates, and smiles. It's a perfect smile, touched with fascination. Six years in the future, a sixteen-year-old girl gives him nearly the same smile, and nineteen years past that, she leaves him.

"You're ambitious," he informs Ozymandias, and he receives another brilliant smile for his consideration. He does know this to be true; he can see a vast commercial empire, charity performances on the television, all accompanied by the same polished face of faultlessness.

"Well, thank you," Ozymandias says, taking it entirely as a compliment. Jon can't quite decide whether or not he likes the way the man eyes him as they drift apart, with a predatory hardness in his expression that belies the cool friendliness he has been projecting to the room at large. Far past this, something muddles Jon's ability to see with his usual clarity just how far this man will go to achieve what he wants, but the answer is still clearly "very."

 

In 1975, Ozymandias retires and Adrian Veidt emerges in his place. They are remarkably similar, like the alter ego hardly existed. Jon pays Adrian a visit later that year, where there has been nothing, where there is a bustle of hasty construction, where there will be the seat of his kingdom, and tells him "You were always going to do this."

Adrian's smile this time is inscrutable, something else Jon appreciates, though he does not try to shake his hand. "Not necessarily. But I'd like to direct my energies toward something more productive than running around in a costume, as good as I looked in that." He laughs, seems to wait a moment for Jon to laugh as well, and shakes his head when he gets no response. "Do you want something in particular?"

There are too many possible answers to that question, but Jon likes to choose honesty when he can. "I'm not sure," he admits. In less than five minutes, Adrian is going to kiss him, and he'll be surprised. Not at the gesture, perhaps, but at the forcefulness of it coupled with the way Adrian only betrays the slightest shudder at what Jon knows is the alien shock of touching his bare skin, at the way Adrian bites his tongue (a move far more forward and brutal than the image Adrian has constructed), or maybe at the fact that he finds himself responding. Predictable, yes; interesting, even more so.

"This isn't what I came here for," Jon says, not exactly telling the truth but not exactly lying, all of ten minutes later. Adrian shoots him a look that betrays actual irritation. For a second, Jon feels a twinge of something that could be smugness. Adrian brings this out in him, traces of irrational human emotion, simply by virtue of his constant attempts to rise to Jon's level and his occasional near-successes.

"Well, then, I'm insulted," Adrian says. It almost sounds genuine, but he ruins it with one of his golden-voiced laughs. "What do you plan to tell Miss Juspeczyk?" There is an assumption in that that Jon dislikes but cannot honestly refute.

Jon's answer is short and blunt. "I won't."

It's true-- Laurie doesn't need to know. She won't need to know when he does it again later that same year, interrupting Adrian in the middle of a heated telephone conversation about the airships Jon has made possible. She won't need to know that there are times when he is having conversations with both her and Adrian simultaneously. Most of all, and he knows this by the way her expression when she looks at him is still hopeful half the time, there is no reason to tell her about the way Adrian sheds his corporate persona and turns into something both needy and almost ferocious in bed with him, something that Jon finds increasingly difficult to resist. Jon doesn't even have to lie, quite. She never asks and he knows that she never will ask, and so he never tells her. He doesn't want to lose her, even knowing that he will.

 

Adrian seems to veer wildly between extremes, either all the reckless passion that defines humanity or all smooth intelligence. It's difficult for Jon to pick which he prefers. Both, however, have the tendency to drag Jon back down from his increasingly high pedestal; either he's furiously doing what he can to match Adrian's fervor or he's entertaining admiration and annoyance for Adrian's brilliance. Once, they go to dinner, Jon knowing they'll never do it again and therefore finding himself paying more attention than he otherwise might to every word Adrian says.

There is a haze surrounding the future that he doesn't like at all but that the trajectory of time won't seem to let him try to puzzle out. Uncertain for the first time in years, Jon consents to working with Veidt Industries. They meet and shake hands and Adrian pretends for the press to be startled at the way Jon's skin feels. Jon pays little attention, just waiting for the time only a few hours later when he knows they will be alone.

"You didn't have to do this," Adrian says in a way that suggests that really, he did have to.

Jon shakes his head, watching without letting his expression change as Adrian's deft fingers unknot his tie. "I did."

Adrian laughs. It sounds almost genuine. "You would say that, wouldn't you?"

Something is off about the way Adrian is moving, and Jon feels himself actually hesitate before reaching to draw his fingertip along his collarbone, enjoying-- as always-- the slight shudder it draws from him. "War--" Jon begins.

Adrian doesn't let him continue, instead drawing him into a kiss that comes as close to distracting Jon from his own thoughts as anything can. Deliberately, he steers himself away from thinking of anything with more consequence than Adrian's measured breaths. He may as well commit this all to memory before he loses it-- whatever it is, or was, or may be.

 

It is November of 1985 and Adrian is looking at him expectantly, his perfect face slightly flushed and his eyes bright. "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end."

Oddly unsure as to why he's doing it, Jon hesitates, even with the knowledge of what Adrian will say next.

"For both of us. You can stay here now, help me keep the world as it's supposed to be-- I'm sure it won't be difficult to keep you hidden." Adrian pauses, seeming to realize that Jon is not answering. "Jon," he says, lower.

Jon is thankful that he doesn't subscribe to anything so emotional as anger. "Is that what this was about all along?"

Adrian is an excellent liar, but not excellent enough for someone with eyes as sharp as Jon's to miss the split-second during which he glances away, as good as a signed confession. "All along? Not at all."

Anger? No, he may not do anger, but that doesn't prevent Jon from closing the distance between himself and Adrian without lifting a foot, pulling him down from that stupid throne with fistfuls of his cape. "You succeeded," he says levelly, "in circumventing my involvement this time. And I won't interfere."

Adrian isn't flinching, isn't reacting at all save bracing himself with a hand against Jon's chest.

"I could kill you right now," Jon continues, as if he's discussing the stock market with him, something he _has_ done in the past. "Turn your bones to plastic or your muscles to cotton. I could take apart all of the hard work you've done with hardly a second thought." He lets his voice become softer, aware that this tends toward the slightly dramatic and hoping it will appeal to Adrian's sensibilities because of that. "I suggest that you not try to manipulate me anymore."

"You don't understand at all," Adrian starts, eyes narrowed, and for the first time, it's Jon who cuts him off with a kiss. This, at least, will always succeed in getting through to him, if the way tension ripples through Adrian's muscles is any indication.

"I've rarely heard you be more incorrect, Ozymandias," Jon finally says. Their lips are still touching, but Adrian isn't moving closer. "I understand too much. I know you know that." Just six months ago, he and Adrian are arguing about-- discussing, Jon calmly insists at the time-- the best way to go about space exploration, diffusing the disagreement by taking it to bed, as if they're normal people.

This time, Jon just leaves.


End file.
